Minutes of the Meeting of the Faculty
for October 29, 2008
PSF 13/08-09

 

The Faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside held its Fall 2000 meeting at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, October 29, 2008, in the Galbraith Room. Those attending were Fay Akindes, Lori Allen, Kylie Christensen, Don Cress, Doug DeVinny, Lane Earns, Michele Gee, Jerry Greenfield, Frances Kavenik, Dennis Kaufman, Farida Khan, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Penny Lyter, Greg Mayer, Bill Miller, Megan Mullen, David Rogers, Dennis Rome, Carmel Ruffolo, Mary Kay Schleiter, Michael Seredycz, John Skalbeck, Susan Takata, Scott Thomson, John Ward, Gary Wood, and Evelyn Zepp (as Secretary of the Faculty). 

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order by Interim Chancellor Earns at 3:38 P.M. 

MINUTES

The Minutes of the Faculty Meeting of April 3, 2008 were not yet available, due to the loss/misplacement of personal property at the time of the Secretary’s automobile accident.  The minutes will be made available as soon as located. 

 

OLD BUSINESS

There was no old business. 

 

NEW BUSINESS

• A motion to form a Committee of the Whole was automatically on the floor.  The motion was approved unanimously. 

• As provided under UWPF 1.04(3), the University Committee Chair, Dennis Rome, assumed the Chair. 

• Prof. Rome announced that there have been 17 nominees for the Chancellor Search and Screen Committee; these were submitted Friday.  People should be contacted by the end of next week.  The Search Committee should be up and running by November.  

• Interim Chancellor Earns stated that specific recommendations from the Porch report should be surfacing soon. 

• Prof. Kavenik stated that she never got a thank you letter [for serving on the Chancellor Search Committee] from anyone. 

• Prof. Rome stated that he had discussed this with President Reilly on several occasions. 

• The Chair recognized Interim Chancellor Earns, who addressed budget issues and gave a summary of the Chancellor’s survey.

 

 

BUDGET

    The Chancellor sent a memo describing our current budget situation to all faculty and staff. The memo included specific information regarding:

• 10% reduction exercise every year, and that has been completed for this biennium.

• Shortfall of $3 billion for the next biennium—and that may have changed.

• We hope to protect the Growth Agenda, but we can’t say we are exempt.

• We are trying to be conservative in our spending. 

• We should have a better idea just before Thanksgiving; we’ve heard nothing since the budget memo.

 

SURVEY

• We sent out three questions, to students, faculty and staff.

• We received 191 responses.

• 65 from Faculty (the highest number of the groups)

• 64 from Staff

• 25 from the community (selected leaders)

• 37 from students

• We have a 12-page report that will be available on-line.

• The first section dealt with the campus assets and strengths.  People mentioned the campus location (between Chicago and Milwaukee), the beauty of the campus, the small class sizes, the excellence of the faculty and staff (the teaching component was highly rated), the opportunity to interact.  All four groups named diversity.  Strong community engagement was also mentioned. 

• The next section was on issues and needs.  The community responses addressed examining our admission standards (raising them) and increasing academic expectations of students.  We need to improve our retention efforts.  We have to increase financial support.  Also mentioned was developing better and more flexible programs, having more majors.  Improving the campus image was mentioned.  We need to do long-term strategic planning and advance community engagement—economic development and business growth.  Students mentioned parking—the fee, significant for them, should not be just the right to hunt for a place.

• The distinctiveness of Parkside turned out to be our strengths.  The beauty of the campus—we assumed they meant the grounds and not the buildings.  Again mentioned were the small class sizes, community engagement., and diversity.  The question is how to package this.  We don’t have the advantage of having one stand-out program (such as engineering at Platteville).  We need to emphasize the good programs we have.  Sustainability was not mentioned as one of our strengths—it is important at all other campuses.

 

Committee of the Whole Discussion:

 

Prof. Mayer commented that as for the beauty of the campus’s 700 acres, the campus is more distinctive than it is given credit for; there is a lot of restored prairie.  It is ground zero for a particular maple forest type.

 

I.C. Earns said the campus needs to be profiled in a way that has not been done in the past.  Student photographers have done campus photos on recycled paper.  There is a lot more we can do with that.

 

Prof. Mayer said that we are the guardians of several areas of national importance.

 

I.C. Earns asked if we ever see this in our literature.  The one place that comes close is Green Bay.

 

Prof. Kavenik said that General Education classes are not small enough.  We are more collaborative than other institutions; this is part of our people power.  We work together for common goals.

 

I. C. Earns said that the first thing he noted about faculty here is that they are not rewarded as they should be.  Collaboration here makes Parkside unique, a community.

 

Prof. Gee said that we have an integrated marketing committee.  We are the best-kept secret in S.E. Wisconsin.  When we bring in people they comment that this place is just glorious.  We need to market ourselves better; we are making strides.  If we look at our students pictured in publicity, not one is wearing clothing that states UW-P.  They have on Notre Dame, etc.; we should at least be neutral.  What is your charge to this committee?  What are the outcomes to date?

 

I.C. Earns said he has done none of that—there has been one meeting.  It will fit into the broader long-term planning.  He has set up an enrollment management team as well.  He has looked at the publications coming out of here, and our web site, and he is not happy with them.  The Viewbook  states we are “in the middle of nowhere.”

 

Prof. Khan said that we are very urban without all the discomforts.  We are well located between the two cities.

 

I.C. Earns said we are in the urban corridor but still out in nature.  People from Kenosha and Racine feel we are too far away—some have never been out here.  One person who graduated in the mid-80’s had never been back.  We need to make more efforts to bring people out here; where are we if we can’t get our neighbors out here?   With the two urban centers, we have all this competition.  We need to be more consistent with our message; he said he has not seen anything consistent.  With all the things available, why should the students go for fast food first?

 

Dean Cress said that we know who our students are—what it takes to get from point A to point B.

 

Prof. Lyter said that many faculty members are trying to create a more productive and positive teaching environment.  As for fast food, her area is health.  The fast food sells.  Who created the advertisement?  --Students.

 

Prof. Akindes asked what the Viewbook is.

 

I. C. Earns said that it is a publication that goes out to High School parents.  There were some bad decisions made in it.  We need to try to control our message a little more.  We have to be careful—we want a balance between what attracts students and the image we want—which is not “the middle of nowhere.”  He fought this at Oskhosh (UW-O=zero); we have to fight this image.  He believes, as everyone in the room does, that our product is better than its reputation.  We need to be careful how we plan this, what we decide.  We need to look at our mission 40 years ago and what it is now.  We need to look at who we are today, what we want to be 5-10 years down the road.

 

Prof. Skalbeck said people have grown up here—they stay.  He said his neighbor has a B.A. and an M.A. from here.  The neighbor commented that no one asks him for money or help.

 

I.C. Earns said that this is not just Parkside and Kenosha.  The comprehensives have not kept track of alumni.  With state funding, people give money to private schools.  We have to tell alumni this is a different world.  They need to not just give money to Carthage, Marquette and Madison.  Institutions are not prepared to deal with a tough change in philosophy—people think that paying their taxes is enough.  We will never go back to the way things were—when ½ of the budget was paid for by the state.

 

Prof. Wood noted that we are a cultural center; we have strong performing arts here.  We also do real research.

 

I.C. Earns said that there is a growing demand these days to have good students work with faculty on research.  He very much agreed about looking at the arts here.  This was not mentioned at all by the community.  They never know what is going on.  We have an excellent retired faculty; they attend a lot of classes and are actively supportive.  Beyond that, he didn’t know.  One of the problems is the T.V. market—a place that is a media center.  The governor wants to go where he can be on T.V. right away.

 

Prof. Ruffolo said we need to improve the public image.  This impacts on everything we do.  There are bad decisions in the marketing area—groups are not communicating with each other.  Out in Kenosha, Carthage does not have issue problems.  They give a prospective package one can believe in and Mom and Dad pay the bill.  We need to decide who we are in the first place.

 

I. C. Earns said we can’t pull away from a community.  Some programs belong to Gateway.  Madison puts students in touch with community members—it’s amazing what is going on.  We aren’t part of their orbit.  This doesn’t mean we give up traditional research, but collaboration with students, what they are doing in the community helps us.  We need to make our web site better looking—it’s a pretty stuffy piece of work.  Other campuses are fighting the same battle.

 

Prof. Lyter said our location is an advantage.  Students can work in a variety of places for fieldwork or internships.

 

I.C. Earns said that a business leader had come up to him and said he had offered an internship opportunity and the student was not interested. We have to make sure that we are putting our best foot forward when there are opportunities.  People in the community can be very supportive of us, but there is this feuding family atmosphere.  We need to make ourselves more visible.

 

Prof. Khan said students have no understanding of the different between high school and college.  Our tuition vs. Carthage’s makes them think that this must be a cheap product.  We must sell public vs. private university.

 

I. C. Earns said that we are in a different financial period—our competition isn’t Carthage, it’s Gateway.  We need to be comfortable with our image, proud of what we do.  The Univ. of Phoenix etc. are a legitimate competition for professional degrees.  Stritch is our biggest competition in education.  We have to see where we fit in this competitive mix.  All of these are trying to expand.

 

Prof. DeVinny said we should think about the method of delivery of Phoenix, upper Iowa etc.  Stout and Platteville have General Education on-line.

 

I.C. Earns replied that we can’t do what Phoenix does—they’ve been doing it for a long time.  People would still rather have a Parkside degree.  We need to offer flexibility; older students need different formats.  We can’t stick our noses in the air.  All the comprehensive institutions have to face this—the way and times we offer classes.  We should look at how often we don’t even offer the traditional Monday to Friday calendar—we have the Tuesday-Thursday crunch.  We have boxed ourselves in—we must look at the very few ways and few hours we make our education available.  We need to get faculty involved at the beginning of the process of articulation agreements.  We have a lot more in common than we have differences with these places.  We need more articulation agreements—we need to make it easier for people to move through the pipeline.  We can be competitive in a good way.  What are people getting out of the Parkside product—that leadership degree?  They can plan their programs—academically sound.  Look at the different kinds of programs out there.  We need to make sure we can offer courses in the summer, on-line.  We are talking about a different academic community than when we went to graduate school, and this does not mean that it is watered-down.

 

Prof. Rome said that Prof. DeVinny is working with people from here and Gateway.

 

Prof. DeVinny said we are close on the 1 + 3.  We are hoping to get a grant.  We want to have conversations with all the two-years in the area and with the College of Lake County.  These conversations can be really valuable.  Gateway has integrity—they have the same concerns we do.  For health and business, they come here.  Enrollments are up 20% there in these areas.  We want them to come here to finish their programs; a lot of them go to Carthage.

 

Prof. Wood said that we have ignored that relationship for too long.  We don’t have a UW college close enough.  Gateway is our community college. 

 

Interim Provost Greenfield said we have to look at why students choose a college.  One reason is the academic excellence of the major in which they are interested.  Do we have the majors contemporary students want?  The quality of the faculty is very, very high; the research productivity is very high.  The excellence of faculty members, known in a field, is a link to potential students.  What programs don’t we have that we should have?  If we don’t keep students, we don’t have something they want.  For the community, this is a difficult place to find; parking is difficult and finding their way around is difficult.  We didn’t have signs until 11 years ago.  We are not as easy to work with as Gateway.  It should be easy to use us for events.  We have the quality in what is done here and the people we have; we don’t have all the delivery systems, etc. people want.

 

Prof. Ruffolo said that students all over the world go on Facebook.

 

I. P. Greenfield said that we do have a message, but that we can’t invent something we aren’t.

 

I. C. Earns said that there were no physical entrances easily available; now we are creating a main entrance.

 

Prof. Gee said we are not handicap accessible in many areas.   She noted that we have an accomplished staff as well, and great alumni.  We need a consistent message.  If we go into the community, we are perceived as an individual, not a member of Parkside.

 

I. C. Earns said the CCP conveys us as one Parkside.  He is familiar with the frustration of having an image that won’t go away—i.e. that we are not a residential campus.  We have to push that we are different than we were before.  The community is not getting the total experience.  Those images don’t change overnight.  He knew of a situation where the parents didn’t want to student to come because of something that happened in 1968.  He hears so often about what we didn’t have to make us a real university.  However, the graduates who leave say good things about us—that’s the best thing.

 

Prof. Leeds-Hurwitz said that she had been a part of a group which did exit interviews.  The students knew out department was great and we tracked every other department.

 

I.C. Earns said that’s their image of us.

 

Prof. Zepp noted that General Education is also a strength here.  She mentioned that Prof. Kavenik’s and Prof. Allen’s work has garnered national attention.

 

I.C. Earns looked at the things which will work on changing our image: the first year.  We have to reinforce the message.  Students and faculty are not speaking the same language—they could be on different planets.  Early on we have to convey what we are trying to get at.  We can work on that in your first-year programs.

 

Prof. Rome said that Prof. Klaver and V.C. McLaughlin are working on intergrated marketing.

 

The Committee of the Whole rose without report. 

 

Prof. Rome noted that the last Faculty Senate came very close to not having a quorum.  He said we must keep the business going.  We are having Information Sessions at the Senate on items which will come back later for approval. 

 

ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was adjourned at 4:59 P.M. 

 

Refreshments were served, through the generosity of the Chancellor. 

 

Respectfully submitted, 

 

Evelyn Zepp

Interim Secretary of the Faculty